The most obvious technique used by Jarmusch in Dead
Man is to photograph the film in black and white. According
to interviews, his main aim was to neutralize the familiarity of
objects and landscapes, an "important reason was the story.
It is about a character who gets further and further away from
anything familiar to him. Colour would give extra
information". Another reason for Jarmusch was that he also
wanted to distance the audience historically and get away from
all the other Westerns who employ the same "standard palette
of dusty colours". He uses black-and-white as a kind of new
palette with a lot of different shades of grey to provide a
different landscape. Additionally, the decision for making Dead
Man a black and white movie simply was choosing what was
appropriate for the emotional tone of the story. He also reminds
of the connotations of the Film Noir of the 1940s and 50s.

Fade-Outs

A technique Jarmusch uses to create the special
"speed" of the film is by fading to black at the end of
a scene. Also films in the forties used this device between each
scene. The rhythm of Dead Man gets a little slower
because of the use of these transitions. The character's as well
as the viewer's sense of time is obscured. The structure of the
film is also closely linked to the main character, William Blake:
scenes fading to black are often because Blake fades from
consciousness. The use of fade-outs also implies scenes which
exist in isolation from one another as complete units, rather
than as complementary elements glued together to suggest an
unbroken continuity. One critic also pointed out that in this
respect the blackouts between sequences function like the empty
spaces between stanzas in an epic poem.

Camera

Although the camera employs strategies typical
for Western movies like high camera angle, focusing on a
scull with the rest of the landscape in the background,
the epic panorama so typical of the classic Western films
is conspicuously absent. Right at the beginning, we
usually see a wide landscape, opening up in front of the
viewer (cf. Dances with Wolves). In Dead Man,
the camera remains focused on the hero's point of view,
thereby reducing the universal to the particular,
breaking the mythical panorama into small spots of time
as they are experienced by the protagonist. The long
establishing opening only provides restricted view, not
an opening in land. Jarmusch's Western landscape is not a
continuum, but composed of fragments like dense forests,
naked rocks: landmarks, sinister and claustrophobic
spaces. Although Jarmusch uses deep focus photography as
well as stationary camera shots, the characters are not
centered in the frame, but stand to the left or right of
the scenes. They are obviou sly the focal point of the
scene, but the background is taking up most of the frame.
The visual perception is an unsettling experience for
both viewer and protagonist. Many long takes and the
avoidance of excessive cutting also contribute to the
"slowness" of the film, which, as a critic put
it "may be the most protracted death scene in
movies; by comparison, Garbo's death in Camille
is a quickie."

Iconization & Symbols

Jarmusch plays with the excessive use of icons
in Western movies. During Blake's journey to Machine, he
sees an abandoned wagon and forsaken teepees, symbols for
an uninviting archaic world, for loss of home. This
change in landscape is illustrated by the corresponding
change in the fellow passengers who undergo several
alterations in their out-fit until they perfectly
represent the typical population of the Western. Also the
mysterious prophet-like fireman is surrounded with
symbols: his black face as well as the flames out of the
metal horse and the smoke of the engine are images of
hell, something the fireman warns Blake of. Blake's
glimpses of various activities during his initial walk
through Machine represents a heap of symbol s of death:
freshly built coffins, animal sculls and skins, etc. The
three gunmen hired to kill Blake are also faithful to the
Western formula, they are traditional up to the dirt
under their fingernails.

Later in the film, there are more
transcendental images to be found: Blake curls up
alongside an accidentally slain fawn and wipes its blood
onto his own wound, a very archaic imagery. Additionally,
the head of one of the Sheriffs murdered lies in the
middle of the burnt out fireplace, creating the image of
a gloriole around his head. Ironically, it is a
headhunter who comments on the picture: "Looks like
a goddam religious icon" before crushing it under
his boots. Blake's transformation is also illustrated
with many images: he loses his attributes of
civilization, namely his watch and his glasses - his
clear sight and the feeling for time.

Soundtrack

Dead Man's mystical, meditational
soundtrack is written and performed by Neil
Young. To a large percentage it
consists of electric guitar only. The music is Young's
immediate emotional reaction to the film as he sat with
his guitar, watching the film three times in three days,
playing along with it. The rhythm of the soundtrack
highlights the rhythm of the film, its visual poetry.
Jarmusch's images reappear in Young's music: the metallic
voice of the railway, the entering of the landscape, the
fight between nature and civilization. Unlike the popular
road movie soundtrack, which typically consists of often
arbitrary selections of well-known songs, Neil Young's
music literally translates the film into sound. It is
therefore not simpy added to the images, but rather grows
out of them directly.